Mimosa Takes Its Turn

Mimosa Takes Its Turn

By

Published December 8, 2008

Mimosa, by Marc Jacobs

There’s a certain shade of yellow that has long played a supporting role—providing the vivid background to many a Marc by Marc Jacobs ad and the shiny runway at DKNY’s recent twentieth anniversary show. That’s about to change.

Forget just plain old champagne-Pantone wants us to ring in the new year with Mimosa. The “global authority on color” thinks upping the Vitamin C factor in 2009 will bring us out of today’s doom and gloom; the orange-tinted yellow, according to Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, is “invariably connected to warmth, sunshine and cheer—all the good things we’re in dire need of right now.”

Black may be a fashion editor’s favorite—and seemingly more appropriate in these dreary times-and designers like Alber Elbaz of Lanvin may dismiss color forecasts as for the masses—”We have to go with intuition”—but his designer peers seem to have unwittingly fallen into line. Christopher Kane dipped his scalloped Spring 2009 skirt in a yellow worthy of the sparkling orange juice cocktail, and the same hue wound its way through the Spring runways of Bottega Veneta and Marc Jacobs. So here’s to better, brighter times.